I am depressed right now. It interferes with my functioning on a number of levels. It really messes with my ability to concentrate and come up with creative work. I know that I promised all y'all an update to the serial stories. I feel real bad that I can't even remember where I was going with the plot of any of them right now. I just have a blank in my head where that plotline was. I look at my notes and they just strike me as gibberish. They make no sense to me as I read them. Sure, there's an internal logic to them but my depressed brain just can't grasp that logic and take the bullet points to paragraphs.
I'm going to try, going forward, when I get caught in the grips of depressive spells or other mental health struggles due to my being disabled to blog about it here (and on my other blogs). It is less about the fact that I want to wave a flag and get attention and pity for my situation and more about I'm trying to keep you abreast of what is going on over on this end of the internet. I'm trying to grind my way through these spells and post content that's genuine and, hopefully, interesting.
You may have picked up from my Morning Pages posts that I have a lot of trauma that I'm working through. I've been in some form of therapy for most of my adult life. I've a diagnosis of complex-posttraumatic stress disorder and bipolar II, with a side of seasonal affective disorder. We're entering into the time of year that is really hard for me. There's a lot of trauma-versary dates coming up. There's the stress of being estranged from my toxic side of the family. I'm still mourning the deaths of my beloved grandparents who basically taught me how to be a decent person despite all the crap going down in my parents' house. Between those two facts, the holidays suck more than the fact that we're all basically forced to listen to Bing Crosby 24/7 whenever we go out in public until sometime around the middle of January.
This blog is not going to turn into a disgorging of trauma. I've got my therapy journals for that work. But it may come up from time to time because that's what's on my mind. I'm going to do my best to keep that rambling to the Morning Pages. My mental functioning right now is impaired. I'm exhausted despite a full night of sleep last night. I'm terrified that there's going to be horrible consequences for this post. And I feel like I should just give up on everything because I feel like nothing's ever going to get better. Depression is a beast. Medication helps, it keeps me from being at that place where I've got suicidal thoughts running around in my head. But 'happy pills' don't make you happy. They just take the edge off of the sword stuck in your heart. You're still pumping out emotional blood and wounded, but it doesn't cut deeper than it already has.
The esteemed Chuck Tingle calls this 'the call of the lonesome train'. It's a pretty good metaphor for this feeling. You feel alone and like there's no hope. Because I'm a fighter by nature, I just grimly put up my shield and push forward through the dragur of trauma memories and fucked up brain chemistry. Eventually, I'll get through this. It's just going to be ugly and painful in the process.
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